Three Visualization Tools to Grasp Dynamism in the Global Economy: PRISM, TRADE MAPPER and EMERGENT

Transcription

1 Three Visualization Tools to Grasp Dynamism in the Global Economy: PRISM, TRADE MAPPER and EMERGENT Erik Noyes Babson College Entrepreneurship Division Arthur M. Blank Center for Entrepreneurship Babson Park, MA, USA Deligiannidis Leonidas Wentworth Institute of Technology, Department of Computer Science and Systems 550 Huntington Avenue Boston, MA, USA Abstract - In this interactive demo-session we present how information visualization can be used as an innovative pedagogical tool in business education to help students grasp dynamism in the global economy. We will demonstrate how data-rich visualizations enable students understanding of foundational business content, including global competition, innovation-based competition, and industry evolution. The growing field of information visualization examines how data-rich representations of complex phenomena can drive new insights and hypotheses. In the words of visualization researcher Ben Schneiderman, "Information visualization gives you answers to questions you didn't know you had." In a highly visual presentation, participants will be engaged to discuss, explore and critique a visual approach to teaching about changing business environments, the global economy, and especially multi-decade change which suggests new opportunities and risks for business leaders. This research was undertaken to examine ways visual knowledge discovery can improve learning outcomes in business education including technology-enabled learning and distance learning. 1. Introduction We will demonstrate three highly interactive visualization tools and present our formal findings. A successful visualization tool is one that enables a user to analyze and query the data efficiently and, as a result, it helps them comprehend the data faster and easier. To accomplish this, one can convert data into a visual representation that allow users to dynamically explore the data so that they can comprehend and explore the data. As others have observed, humans possess great pattern recognition skills especially when it comes to visual representations [1]. Restrictions such as the visual real estate of a computer monitor or a sheet of paper can become an obstacle in presenting data in such a way that humans, who are the primary judges of a visualization technique, can observe, query, and comprehend data. Because of this challenge, many visualization techniques present the data to the user as an overview of the dataset with drill-down capabilities to see details on demand [2]. Most visualization techniques present the data as an overview of the dataset [3] and include functionalities which enable the user to zoom in and out to study the detail of the data. Other visualization techniques offer simultaneous macro-micro levels of information, allowing the user to choose varying levels of abstraction. Small multiples--reoccurring visual structures which facilitate a visual language within and across visualizations--can provide users grounding points for broader exploration, theorizing, or question framing for a particular visualization. Yet other approaches to visualization give the user full control to explore the dataset one step at a time [4]. With this last technique, users can explore any sub-

2 graphs of the dataset but are not able to visualize a full overview of the dataset. Generally it is best for a visualization to be built around the chief structure, or domain, of the data. For example, data that contains geographic information should generally be presented over a map [5] [6]. Even though the idea to add more dimensions to visualize a dataset seems attractive (i.e., 3-D versus 2-D), research shows that caution must be taken when adding dimensions since the added complexity of interpretation and/or navigation can confuse users. However, thoughtfully implemented and tested for effectiveness, visualizations with additional dimensions can create added flexibility and introduce new richness [7]. Below we give a short overview of three visualization tools to grasp dynamism in the global economy PRISM, TRADE MAPPER and EMERGENT-- which we developed for use in business education. Particularly, each visualization and its interactive capabilities are intended to enable innovative teaching about changing business environments, the global economy, and especially multidecade change which suggests new opportunities and risks for business leaders. Fig. 1. PRISM is a visual knowledge discovery tool to visualize and understand International Technology Adoption and the innovation S-curve 2. PRISM PRISM, shown above in figure 1, is a knowledge discovery tool for exploring and understanding International Technology Adoption and the innovation S-curve. A central challenge in business education and entrepreneurship education specifically, is conveying the dynamism of industries and innovation. Students of business must appreciate the waves of creative destruction which birth industries, redistribute wealth and alter the basis of competition. Core to this objective is understanding patterns of innovation and technology adoption in the global economy (e.g., the rate at which

3 Mobile Phones and Personal Computers penetrate different world markets). Namely, an accurate historical grasp of the diffusion of innovation in one s industry is central to making accurate business assumptions about the risks and timing of entrepreneurial opportunities, competition, return on investment and the chances of venture success. This research exploited the largest known international database on technology adoption to develop and test innovative teaching tools for entrepreneurship education, a specialty within business education. The overarching goal was to create interactive visual interfaces to improve teaching on technology adoption and the diffusion of innovation with the aim of improving new venture planning. In entrepreneurship education, technology adoption (also known as the S-curve) is generally taught qualitatively as a cornerstone concept in innovation, competitive analysis and new venture planning. Accordingly, students are rarely, if ever, provided rich data to examine the tempo, implications and varying patterns of technology adoption. Creating an interactive visual interface, we enabled entrepreneurship students to browse and compare international technology adoption data across the leading 25 industrialized countries from This included national trends in the adoption of telegraphs, AM radios, private cars, televisions, personal computers, mobile phones and even industrial robots. Our head-to-head evaluation of PRISM, versus an Excel spreadsheet with identical data showed that entrepreneurship students make more accurate reflections and future forecasts about technology adoption for a wide range of technologies with our tool. The research was undertaken to examine ways visual knowledge discovery can improve learning outcomes in entrepreneurship education and strengthen entrepreneurship students conception of innovation dynamics when planning for and launching a new technology venture. Fig. 2. TRADE MAPPER is a visual knowledge discovery tool to understand shifting trade flows, and the criticality of world actors, in global trade between WWII and the last decade.

4 3. TRADE MAPPER TRADE MAPPER, shown above in Figure 2, is a visual knowledge discovery tool to understand shifting trade flows, and the criticality of world actors, in global trade between WWII and the last decade. It provides business students an interactive and intuitive interface to see changing world trade patterns between the top 25 industrialized countries. By applying a network layout algorithm, TRADE MAPPER shows the bi-directional flows and value of trade between the top 25 industrialized countries, where countries which move to the center of the visualization are those rising in importance in world trade in a certain time period. The thickness of the lines, or ties, between countries illustrates the total combined value of imports and exports between any two countries. The user can play a movie and see shifting patterns of world trade including the emergence of trading blocs for the past 60+ years. Additionally, using sliders, the user can drill down and focus on a snap shot or changing moment in world trade. This tool was created to give business students an intuitive sense of the dynamism of world trade and show, for example, the shifting importance of the United States in world trade. Where in the 1960 s and 1970 s the United States was unarguably a world hub for trade, now massive flows of trade are moving among specialized trade blocs and the United States is diminishing in overall importance and centrality to the flow of world trade. A network view as opposed to a standard non-relational line chart of simple trade volumes adds critical dimensions and interactivity to the typical presentation of trade data. In a classroom or remotely on the web, business faculty and students can explore, discuss and reveal interesting longitudinal patterns in world trade as part of discussion about the changing business environment for industry and entrepreneurial opportunities. Fig. 3. Emergent is a visual knowledge discovery tool for understanding emerging industry structure.

5 4. EMERGENT EMERGENT [7], shown above in Figure 3, is a visual knowledge discovery tool for understanding emerging industry structure. Particularly, Emergent is an interactive tool to understand the emergence and structure of the nanotechnology industry. According to the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), the global nanotechnology industry is expected to grow to $1 trillion in 2010 and drive dramatic innovation and wealth creation in industries as diverse as energy, computing and biotechnology. Nanotech entrepreneurs, analysts and investors alike need tools to understand the emerging structure of the industry because firm competitive positions in the industry impact ventures survival, growth and profitability. Overall, the value of the tools is that it shows the relations between all known consumer-focused nanotech ventures in the forming industry and their positions vis-à-vis each other amidst seven subareas of technology commercialization. EMERGENT provides and interactive, dynamic map to see how the industry is taking shape and what the areas of innovation and competition are. Specifically, nanotech ventures compete from different initial strategic footprints in the industry which ease or complicate entry into new growth businesses. In fact, the emergence of the nanotechnology industry is the story of interweaving with and penetration into different adjoining industries. EMERGENT is able to show these emerging connections which require a network layout of nanotech ventures, nanotech products, and forming markets of the industry. EMERGENT is interactive, scalable, and adaptable to relational data from other industries. Business applications of EMERGENT include industry analysis, strategic planning and entrepreneurial opportunity identification. As shown in figure 3, EMERGENT consists of the main visualization renderer window and several controls. EMERGENT uses a spring-embedded algorithm to layout the graphs. The controls are used to query the data and render animations of the data based on range of years. 5. Results and Conclusion Through our user studies we found that students are able to understand and analyze data more accurately with our three visualizations than by using other conventional tools such as Excel. Namely, Excel, the standard data visualization tool of business students and business professionals, cannot render relational data in network diagrams, nor does it facilitate visual knowledge discovery in any fluid sense as it is a time-consuming process to query and render different parts of a data set. Specifically, users of PRISM, we found, were able to answer a series of questions about international technology adoption with far greater accuracy in less than half the time of those provided identical data in Excel. While in-class results have been strong, we are in the process of conducting more formal evaluations of TRADE MAPPER and EMERGENT. Overall, while information visualization is a relatively new field, we have compelling evidence that visualization has an important role to play in business education and particularly to enable students understanding of foundational business content, global competition, innovation-based competition, and the changing global business environment. Given the changing nature and technologies of business education, we are exploring how visualization can expand the reach and impact of business education through technology-enabled learning and distance education. References [1] Thomas A. DeFanti, Maxine D. Brown and Bruce H. McCormick, Visualization: Expanding Scientific and Engineering Research Opportunities, IEEE Computer, 22 (8), 1989, pp [2] Card S. K., Mackinlay J. and Shneiderman B., Readings in Information Visualization Using Vision to Think, Morgan Kaufmann, San Francisco, CA, [3] Taowei David Wang and Bijan Parsia, CropCircles: Topology Sensitive Visualization of OWL Class Hierarchies, 5th International Semantic Web Conference, (ISWC) [4] Leonidas Deligiannidis, Krys J. Kochut, Amit P. Sheth, "RDF Data Exploration and Visualization". In Proc. of the ACM first Workshop on CyberInfrastructure: Information Management in escience (CIMS'07), pp.39-46, Nov. 9th 2007, Lisboa, Portugal. [5] Leonidas Deligiannidis, Farshad Hakimpour, Amit P. Sheth, "Event Visualization in a 3D Environment". In Proc. of Human System Interaction (HSI'08), pp , May 08 Krakow Poland. [6] T. Kapler and W. Wright, GeoTime Information Visualization, In Proc. of IEEE InfoVis, [7] Erik Noyes, Leonidas Deligiannidis, Emergent: A Knowledge Discovery Tool for Understanding Emerging Industry Structure. In Proc. of the 4 th International Conference on Human System Interaction (HSI 11). May , Yokohama, Japan.